


You Are Nathan

by deadlybride



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Episode: s04e12 The Fifth Stage, M/M, Mind Control, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 11:10:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/661304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlybride/pseuds/deadlybride
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"O how he loves you, darling boy. O how, like always, he invents the monsters underneath the bed to get you to sleep next to him, chest to chest or chest to back, the covers drawn around you in an act of faith against the night."<br/> - Richard Siken</p>
<p>Peter is twenty-nine and he loves you. This is dangerous because you are no longer yourself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are Nathan

  
“…somewhere up ahead of you your brother has pulled to the side of the road and he is waiting for you with a lug wrench clutched in his greasy fist. O how he loves you, darling boy. O how, like always, he invents the monsters underneath the bed to get you to sleep next to him, chest to chest or chest to back, the covers drawn around you in an act of faith against the night. When he throws the wrench into the air it will catch the light as it spins toward you. Look – it looks like a star. You had expected something else, anything else, but the wrench never reaches you. It hangs in the air like that, spinning in the air like that. It’s beautiful.”

 

 

Peter is dangerous. You know this. He gives you those broad shiny smiles when he’s happy, when you’re doing what he wants, and you feel like you’ve succeeded. But the thing about smiles is how easily they fade. And they do. When you fail to live up to Peter’s standards, that delicate brow furrows. The mouth goes tight. One of two attitudes might be taken: Peter might ignore you, might retreat into disappointed sorrow, or he might decide to point out your faults with the same air of angelic superiority he’s had since sixteen. You’re the elder; you’re the one with the real power, the answers. It shouldn’t matter.

Peter is dangerous and you know this, but you don’t know what to do. Is it better to face that petulant wrath or risk his happiness? When he’s twenty he comes to visit you at the DA’s office. He’s shining, proud, because his big brother is fighting for the side of justice, and you have to look away from the soft curve of his nape where it disappears into the sweater your wife gave him for his birthday. From the flex of muscles in his young forearm when he picks up his backpack, when he pushes the fall of dark hair behind his ear, when he wraps you into a one-armed hug and says, “I love you, Nathan,” without any shame at all.

Peter is dangerous because he has never said no. When he is in the second grade, a little girl begs him to get her doll back from the older bullies and Peter goes, without a thought. Later, when you’re cleaning dirt from his scrapes as carefully as you can, he cries only because he didn’t retrieve the doll. When he’s a sophomore, a friend begs him to join the school’s baseball team, and though they lose every single game Pete sticks with it, doesn’t complain even once. If you’re at home you come and sit in the stands, dutiful, and try not to wince when the shortstop on Pete’s team commits yet another error. When Peter trudges out of the locker room you spread your arms and tell him, “Good game, maybe you’ll get them next time –“ but he’s not listening, because he’s wrapped around you, welcoming you home. When you take him back to your parents’ house, or to your apartment, or to the house you share with your wife, and your touches become less brotherly, Peter just smiles and sinks into them, into you, and accepts it.

It should be harder. He should protest. With your mouth hot on the curve of his jaw, your hands large and uncouth at his hips, he should go still, should struggle. There should be some acknowledgement of – of what’s wrong. But if you’ve had a hard day (the case gone wrong, your wife a disappointment) and you come to him, if you pull him to your chest and put a hand on the back of his neck, Peter doesn’t frown. This is something he expects, something that fits within the bounds of acceptable behavior for reasons you will never understand. He arches into your touch with calm satisfaction, no matter what you do. There are times you want to – hurt him, almost. To dig your nails in a little harder, a little rougher. Instead of easing in as gentle as a breath, breaching his body as though it were silk and glass, you sometimes want to see him shattered. To fuck into him, painful, to see him shoved into the mattress under the weight of your body, his breath no longer a sigh but something urgent, frightened. You want him to grimace, mouth nothing like a smile, eyes huge and dark and maybe afraid of you, maybe terrified. But you never do. How could you? Because what if you weren’t ever allowed this again? This:

Peter is twenty-three and has just started his last year of nursing school. His apartment is tiny, of course, because they always are, but the bedroom is large enough for the frame you paid for. You have turned the lights down, but Peter, smiling, has lit the Japanese lanterns, so the white sheets are muddied and dyed in red, violet, gold. You are standing at the end of the bed, still in most of your suit, watching as Peter strips for you. His skin stains crimson as he arches to peel away his shirt, but when the tattered jeans slide down his thighs are gold. You pull in a breath and Pete smiles at you – again, always. It’s difficult to think, but Pete comes up on his knees, shuffles toward you. Long pale fingers make such distractions as buttons, belt, zipper seem inconsequential. So easy, always so easy as he pulls you down on top of him and you try to keep your weight off of him, to touch so careful, because he’s your baby brother and you have to protect him from everything, including yourself. But all he does is smile at you, and raise warm hands to your face. His mouth tastes like the Indian you had for dinner, his tongue like cloves and cinnamon. No matter that he makes quiet, needy sounds, you prepare him as carefully as you know how, mouth wet across his abdomen, licking sweat at the angle of his hip, lips and tongue asking always for permission. When you press inside you expect him to wince, to ask you to slow down – but he never does, because you never hurt him (not once, not even the first time), and he wraps his legs around your hips, rocks upward, smiles (beatific), sighs against your cheek and accepts every thrust like a gift.

 

You can’t threaten your position. Even when you don’t meet his expectations, Peter believes in you. He trusts his brother. He has always seen you as an ally against your parents and the world, even when you go along with their plans, and you don’t deny it. You let Peter look up to you, let him come to you for help. If he’s worried about something, you don’t assuage his fears – not precisely. It’s a betrayal that twists into your stomach, guilt hot nails embedded in your spine, but sometimes you fuel that anxiety, you let him believe the worst, because then – then he wants comfort. He steps close, eyes vulnerable, and you put a hand on his nape, you pull him into a hug. His arms go tight around your ribs, his face presses into your neck. “I’m sorry, Pete,” you’ll say, and he never asks why.

Peter is twenty-nine and he loves you. This is dangerous because you are no longer yourself. You feel cloven, disintegrated. He wraps his hands around your biceps and says, “Please, Nathan, stay with me.” He says, “You can fight him.” He says, “Do it for me.” And you want to, you do, except – except the last time you woke up in his bed, you were terrified you wouldn’t look like yourself. He brings you to the rooftop where you first saw him fly and he holds your face between warm hands, he believes in you. It feels as though you are being torn into three pieces. The body you are in is your own, but not, your mind your own, but –

Lightning is sizzling under your skin. If this were two years ago you wouldn’t be afraid, because back then Peter could heal from anything – but now your little brother is vulnerable, his eyes are scared.

You didn’t want it to be this way. You can’t kiss him, you don’t dare to. “I’m tired, Pete,” you say, and though your heart could just break, could snap at the look on his face, you have to say it. Because even if this isn’t what Peter wants, it’s what he deserves. It’s you finally, truly living up to the idea he has of you, the brother who does only what’s right.

Something dangerous is uncoiling, under your lungs, at the very core of what you were. You can’t do this anymore. Peter isn’t smiling and it isn’t fair to make him try.

You meet his eyes and feel as full of tears as they are. A phantom pulse of pain throbs in your palms, in the lip Peter bloodied but that has healed. You have power, here, more than you first realized. You can be dangerous, too – but you won’t. You let Peter into your arms, you let him press his face into the curve of your shoulder (yours, it’s  _yours_ ) for the last time. He makes your skin wet. You can feel the way his mouth trembles, but for once you have to be strong. Whether Pete can accept this – it doesn’t matter anymore. You let one of the hands in your shape trail to the center of his back, press him close. “I love you, Peter,” you say, and you make sure your voice is as strong as you can make it. You pull in his light like a star, his faith in you as powerful as gravity, and before your strength fails you snatch away from him, keeping the danger locked tight in your chest, making of yourself a prison for long enough to keep Peter safe, and then you jump.  
  



End file.
